A few days after David's nomination in September 2014, we returned to our plans of adding two or three bedrooms to our house. I know it sounds a little extreme, and the challenge was to maintain the house we love but to have more rooms in it.

Jonah, Tracy, Jacob and Addison were planning to be here more often in the summers, and David, now running for parliament, would need room for Mishiel, Ozara and himself. The work began.

We had already added a new bathroom in the basement, installed a new septic system, and expanded the kitchen a tiny little bit to assure that the table would accommodate everyone. We found experts at excavating in small places, and they dug underneath the screen porch with the hope that, starting at the side facing the gardens, they could dig out enough space to add a bedroom. We removed the deck so that we could dig out for another bedroom under it, too. You can see a sketch of the plan here.

To our delight, the excavation under the porch was a resounding success, allowing us to add a bedroom and a windowless storage and cold room. We weren’t able to do all the work ourselves – it was a huge job with a deadline – so we called on professional help. Once the concrete was poured, I began to do the stud walls while waiting for the team to join me. That’s when the warnings started.

The self is an amazing thing. If one knows how to listen, it sends its early messages through the most subtle means. Of course, you have to do more than listen. You also have to take its advice. I didn’t get that part and slowly wore my resources down as the work went on.

One morning, Sheila and I woke up with the very same idea, as though we had been communing in that other world of sleep. We foresaw difficulties joining the insulated new roof of the bedroom that would be under the new deck, with the new ceiling of the rooms that would be under the unheated screen porch. There would be a seriously challenging thermal bridge to be forged between the two and the screen porch floor would have to be made waterproof unless…Why don’t we move our master bedroom into the current screen porch and build a new screen porch? we thought together on that fateful morning. The old screen porch roof could then be insulated and the floor would stay dry. It shouldn’t be much more work and, not only would the thermal bridge problem be resolved, but our plan of building a ground-level extension some day ‘when we’re old’ would be realized. Also, David and Mishiel could move into the master bedroom upstairs, Ozara could move to their old room, and hers could become a den and guest room.It is amazing how much more work that decision added to the project. Somehow, it doubled what we had left to do, and then we discovered that the construction team, who were good framers and rough carpenters, did not know they weren’t good at all the rest. Thankfully, our close friend and neighbour, Gord, was available and we could push on.

Well, to make a long story short, when I returned from the hospital and could not climb stairs, we moved into our mostly finished new quarters on the ground floor.

During that whole time, David and Mishiel were scaring us with just how hard they were working. They were all over the riding. David knocked on 10,000 doors while Mishiel drove and watched Ozara. The intensity of their work increased as we built our way through the summer, with its visit from the British contingent being the only break we had. The election call, beginning the longest campaign in modern Canadian history, came in early August. It seemed almost anti-climactic but of course it wasn’t. It was all-consuming. Knowing and watching David, who was given absolutely no chance of winning by those who are supposed to know, we were aware that if David felt he had a chance, he had a chance. Watching him grow up and deal with the world, never kidding himself and never accepting to be patronized, regardless of the authority he was dealing with, we knew that he was not wasting his time. If it could be done, he could do it, and he thought it could be done.

​You can see his swearing-in celebration picture here. ​We invite you to explore the many pages and links on this website to learn more about what we are all doing. Your comments are always welcome.

Share the NewsIf you ﻿wish to share community stories and events, send us an email. We can be reached at sheila-and-joe@ballyhoo.ca

Sheila and Joe live on a homestead in Sainte Lucie des Laurentides in the Laurentians north of Montreal. Together we write, edit, grow food, get involved in the community and generally have a full life. The site explains more; feel free to explore.